What is special depreciation allowance

@Rabbits01

As TaxGuyBill wrote above:

"Many items over $200 are depreciated over a number of years as "Assets".  The Special Depreciation Allowance gives you 50% of that deduction in the first year, then the other 50% is depreciated as usual.  Starting September 28th, 2017, the Special Depreciation Allowance was changed to 100%.

It is an automatic thing.  You need to specifically elect OUT of it if you do not want it."

Do you have an additional question about this?

I know this is a late reply but thought it might be useful for someone else if they run into the same issue:

It probably doesn't matter either way in your situation since your loss will be used when you sell the property to lower your capital gains. What happens when you take depreciation is it lowers your basis in the property, which then increases your capital gains (the income claimed on the return from the sale of the rental property). Capital Gains is determined by the difference between the sale price and your basis in the property (which is essentially the purchase price plus improvements less depreciation already claimed). However, Since you weren't able to take the loss from your rental property it has been carried over and when you sell the property the carryover loss will be used on the return to lower income.  

Unless you had net income from the property and the 50% special depreciation is what is making your rental income negative and you will have a gain on the sale of the property... in which case you will probably be better opting out because of the net investment income tax (3.8% tax) and higher effective tax rate that will occur from selling the property. It will be better to minimize your income in the year of the sale as much as you can.